What Duc is this?

[Teckhardt]

Saw this on another board. What is it? Looks like a parallel twin.

[DewCatTea-Bob]

" What is it? Looks like a parallel twin. "

____ Yes it does indeed look like one of the late '70s 350/500 vert.twins but,, while I don't think I've ever seen that particular body-work before, it's engine reminds me of the '350-Utah' (single-cyl)...
Ducati was supposed to produce them back around the early '80s, but I didn't think they ever did. _ Sure wish they had!
Wish I could remember the Utah's bore_&_stroke! _ It was more oversquare than our old-350s! - I'm sure it's piston is too wide to fit in an old 350-cylinder, (yet still smaller than our old-450's piston), I'm thinking it was 83mm-bore & 64.5mm-stroke. - (Same stroke as the 750 bevel-twins which ran with 450-sized pistons! -[86 instead of 80mm].)
__ While I'm not sure if this Duc pictured, was a GT350/500 or a 'Sport' model, I can tell ya the B_&_S of the 350-twin was 72x42mm, and the 500-twin was 78x52mm. _ At the time when Ducati's vert.twins were released in 1977, they then took-over the title of having the most oversquare cycle-engines ever made! - (Taking that title away from Benelli's 650-twin, which had a B_&_S of 84x57.8mm -[same stroke as the 250-single!].)


DUCATI-Cheers,
-Bob

[Teckhardt]

Based on what I am reading in my copy of Ian Falloon's Standard Catalog of Ducati Motorcycles, I am guessing its a 78-81 500 GTV (maybe a 350). The gold speedline wheels and the kickstart are from that era.

Would hate to try to find parts of one of these...

[wcorey]

I like the way it's set up, first one I've seen that's 'acceptable' to my sense of style. Definitely a 500, the fins on the cylinder are noticeably wider than on the 350's.
Could have started out as an '83 500 sport, for some reason they made a small run of them for the aussie market after they were out of production for a couple years.
That was the the only model that came with oscam wheels, and I think the only one with the double downtube frame.
I guess marketing killed them more than anything, the company was more known for singles/vtwins, they just never got popular and were as expensive as an 860GTS. Supposedly the chain driven valve gear was a common source of failure and they had somewhat tepid power particularly on the early models, though reviews had the handling as a strong point.